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Jaclyn Lopez, Can’t We Just All Get Along: Reconciling Pesticide Use and Species Protection, 33 Virginia Envtl. L. Journal 184 (2015)Clicking on the button will copy the full recommended citation.
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Royal C. Gardner et al., State of the World’s Wetlands and Their Services to People: A Compilation of Recent Analyses, (Ramsar Sci. & Technical Briefing Note no. 7, Ramsar Convention Secretariat) (2015)Clicking on the button will copy the full recommended citation.
Ramsar Resolution XI.17 requested the Convention’s Scientific and Technical Review Panel to report on the state of the world’s wetlands and their services to people. As a contribution to this task, this Briefing Note summarizes and highlights for Contracting Parties and other decision makers key points from select scientific reports and articles published in 2013 and 2014. In particular, the Briefing Note discusses wetland status and trends, the loss of wetland ecosystem services and future steps for data collection and assessment. The negative trends shown by recent studies should serve as a call to Contracting Parties to avoid further wetland loss and degradation and to strengthen wetland assessment, monitoring and restoration.
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Jason Bent, P-Values, Priors, and Procedure in Antidiscrimination Law, 63 Buff. L. Rev. 85– (2015)Clicking on the button will copy the full recommended citation.
This paper is the second in a series of two papers addressing the influence of priors in antidiscrimination law. The first paper, Hidden Priors, argued that Bayesian probability theory could harmonize two divergent strands of scholarship on the systemic disparate treatment theory of discrimination. This Bayesian approach challenges the conventional use of statistical evidence in systemic discrimination cases. Critically, the Bayesian approach acknowledges the operation of prior information about the likelihood of unlawful discrimination when evaluating statistical evidence. While a handful of scholars have contemplated a transition to a Bayesian antidiscrimination law, there has been no scholarly treatment of the second-order questions raised by the recognition of Bayesian priors. These second-order questions were highlighted at the conclusion of Hidden Priors. They include hard, but not intractable, questions such as: Whose priors matter? How should priors be incorporated into civil litigation procedures? And, what are legitimate sources of priors? The lack of attention to these questions may explain the stubborn refusal of courts, litigants, and employment law scholars to acknowledge the role of priors in systemic discrimination cases. This second article in the series is meant to spur a healthy scholarly discussion of the second-order questions, even if it cannot provide definitive answers to them. This article argues that the procedural devices of our civil litigation system – though imperfect – are actually well-suited to properly allocate responsibility among legislatures, appellate judges, trial judges, and fact-finders for estimating the prior likelihood of discrimination. This article demonstrates that, once acknowledged, priors can be transparently managed by thoughtful implementation of these procedural devices.
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Royal C. Gardner, Mitigation Enforcement, Breach of Contract, and the Law of Unintended Consequences, 37 Nat'l Wetlands Newsletter 11– (2015)Clicking on the button will copy the full recommended citation.
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Susan D. Rozelle, How to Eat the Elephant in the Legal Academy, 31 Columbia Journal of Gender and the Law 44 (2015)Clicking on the button will copy the full recommended citation.
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Klara Van der Ploeg, State Immunity in Jurisprudence of Czech Courts, 5 Czech Yearbook of Public & Private International Law 421 (2014)Clicking on the button will copy the full recommended citation.
This paper discusses the understanding and application of the doctrine of State immunity in the courts of the Czech Republic. In 2008, the Czech Supreme Court reversed its previous conceptualization of State immunity as absolute and introduced a restrictive approach. In doing so, the Court formulated the concept of so-called "functional State immunity", which comparatively sets Czech practice apart from the practice of other States, and could therefore constitute the very contribution of Czech courts to the development of the contemporary doctrine of State immunity in international law. The paper analyzes this concept and the Czech approach more generally through a comparison with other jurisdictions, as well as with jurisprudence of international courts and relevant international instruments. On balance, the Czech State immunity regime is still largely underdeveloped, and many issues remain open for judicial elaboration in future cases.
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Dagmar Rita Myslinska, Racist Racism: Complicating Whiteness Through the Privilege & Discrimination of Westerners in Japan, 83 UMKC Law Review 1 (2014)Clicking on the button will copy the full recommended citation.
With no anti-discrimination legislation, strong Confucian-inspired in-group mentality, and a belief in their mono-ethnicity, Japan is marred by a culture of widespread discrimination. Although it has ratified the International Convention for the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination, and guarantees equality in its Constitution, all those who differ from the closely-circumscribed norm are excluded culturally, and legally. Whites’ position in this milieu is complicated because of the West’s unique historical relationship with Japan, and due to the perception of white global dominance. Although admired and arguably privileged over other outsiders, Caucasians are nevertheless mocked and discriminated against - openly, frequently, and with impunity. The concept of racism, as funneled through critical race theory’s (“CRT”) reliance on homogeneous white privilege, lacks dialectic space to address their experiences of discrimination. Yet both CRT analytical tools and desire for praxis, and Confucian respect for human dignity have much to offer in expanding discrimination discourse, exposing the concept of racism as Western-centric, supporting equality, and giving voice to victims who do not fit the victim norm. In the process, this enlarged theoretical and analytical space can help alleviate Japan’s labor shortage, prompting multi-faceted reforms, and achieving true Confucian harmony and democracy. I propose to create new discourse, situated within expanded CRT and whiteness studies, while providing analytical coverage to a group of Caucasians rarely mentioned in popular or scholarly literature. Definitions of “the other” and “white privilege” need to move away from monolithic notions of race and power, which are white-centric and racist themselves.
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Robyn Powell, From the Delivery Room to the Courtroom: Ensuring the Rights of Parents with Disabilities, Health Law Reporter (2014)Clicking on the button will copy the full recommended citation.
This article, an adaption of the Rocking the Cradle report, provides readers with an understanding of this largely overlooked civil rights issue inherent in the discrimination faced by parents with disabilities, focusing on the legal and policy considerations. The first section provides a historical context on the parenting rights of people with disabilities. The following sections examine the four key areas wherein parents and prospective parents with disabilities face discrimination: child welfare, family law, adoption, and assisted reproductive technologies. Finally, the article concludes with a discussion on what Massachusetts is doing to remedy this unjust phenomenon and provides a call to action to Massachusetts advocates and policymakers.
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Rebecca C. Morgan, What the Future of Aging Means to All of Us: An Era of Possibilities, 48 Ind. L. Rev. 125 (2014)Clicking on the button will copy the full recommended citation.
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Elizabeth Berenguer, Foreward: A Place at the Table, 1 Savannah L. Rev. vii (2014)Clicking on the button will copy the full recommended citation.